Pope visits Sydney

Half a million people from here and abroad have poured into Sydney today to officially welcome the pope to Australia. For the vast majority it has been cause for celebration but for some it has been a day of disappointment.

Transcript

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ALI MOORE, PRESENTER: It was a widely anticipated event and for the overwhelming majority of people who turned out for the occasion, it didn't disappoint.

This afternoon, Pope Benedict XVI delivered his first formal address to hundreds of thousands of pilgrims, gathered in Sydney for World Youth Day.

It capped off a big day for the pontiff; a day which began with an official welcome at Government House and ended with adoring fans cheering him along the streets.

In between, however, there were disappointments: the victims of religious sexual abuse were left out of the day's celebrations, and any last minute hopes the Pope would finally declare Australia's Mary MacKillop a universal saint were dashed.

Sharon O'Neill reports.

SHARON O'NEILL, REPORTER: It was the moment around 140,000 pilgrims had been waiting for: Pope Benedict XVI travelled across Sydney Harbour by boat, before arriving to a rock star welcome. In his first public address to the masses, the Pope expressed his sympathy for the injustices suffered by Indigenous Australians, acknowledged the threat to the earth's environment and urged his young audience to embrace love, unity and truth.

POPE BENEDICT XVI: Let this be the message that you bring from Sydney to the world.

SHARON O'NEILL: But for those who were hopeful the Pope would use his opening address to apologise to the victims of sexual abuse by the Catholic clergy, there was disappointment.

CHRISTINE MACISAAC, BROKEN RITES: The Pope, not to respond, just further shows that the Catholic Church do not take this issue of sexual abuse of children by priests and brothers seriously.

SHARON O'NEILL: The sexual abuse issue has dogged the World Youth Day celebrations this week, and today Anthony and Christine Foster, the parents of two girls who were raped by a Melbourne priest when they were in primary school, flew into Sydney from Europe, to try and seek an audience with the Pope.

One of the Fosters' daughters, Emma, committed suicide earlier this year. But Mr Foster says his intention is to seek redress for all victims of sexual abuse by the clergy.

ANTHONY FOSTER, FATHER: This is really about carrying on in the spirit which was a very caring spirit to try and get more support for the victims that are still suffering, like she did for so very long.

SHARON O'NEILL: There was also disappointment, albeit a different kind, from those who were hoping that Pope Benedict XVI would use his visit to Mark MacKillop's Memorial Chapel today to finally declare Australia's first saint.

PILGRIM: I, like a lot of other pilgrims, was hoping.

SHARON O'NEILL: But for those who have been working tirelessly towards the canonisation of Mary MacKillop, the Pope's silence on the subject today was not surprising.

PAUL GARDINER, CHURCH FATHER: I don't think it was ever possible for that to happen, unless the Pope took the law into his own hands and said, "Well, whatever about the rules that are papal rules - I'm the Pope and I'm going to ignore them."

SHARON O'NEILL: While the Pope stuck to papal rules, back in Rome, the work to make Mary MacKillop a saint continues.

Between them, Sister Maria Casey and Father Paul Gardiner, have racked up more than 30 years of work on the canonisation case. The Catholic Church requires two miracles for a saint to be declared. They've already accepted one: a woman who was cured of leukaemia, and now these devotees of Mark MacKillop are very close to getting over the line with miracle number two.

MARIA CASEY, CHURCH SISTER: This case we have brought to Reims is about a lady who was cured of lung cancer.

SHARON O'NEILL: The lady in question does not want her identity revealed, but she has an extraordinary story. In the mid-1990s, she was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and secondaries in the brain. With virtually no effective treatment options, she chose to go home and spend what time she had left with her family.

MARIA CASEY: They decided that they would prey to Mary MacKillop at this stage and her friends rallied round. Once they too recovered from the shock, they contacted the sisters at North Sydney where Mary MacKillop's shrine is. They joined in what we call a Novena prayer.

SHARON O'NEILL: The woman waited to die, even decided with her husband that her ashes should be scattered in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney. But she didn't die, and eight months after the initial diagnosis, she went back to see her doctor.

MARIA CASEY: The radiologist came out and said, "I think there's been a mistake. I have the wrong film. I must take another X-ray." So when he took the second X-ray, he came back and he said, "No. There is no cancer. It's gone."

SHARON O'NEILL: Father Paul Gardiner and Sister Maria Casey are confident this case has all the requirements need to be accepted as a miracle.

PAUL GARDINER: You have to link the recovery of the person in a way that the medical people can't explain. In the case that we are considering, that is, the simplicity of it is that they haven't been able to make any explanation at all of what happened. They simply say this is inexplicable. And that's all the Church wants.

SHARON O'NEILL: The family of Sophie Delezio firmly believe that their daughter is alive today only through the intervention of Mary MacKillop. In 2005, this little girl was gravely injured when a car crashed through the front of her pre-school. She suffered third degree burns to more than 85 per cent of her body as well as losing her feet, fingers and an ear.

RON DELEZIO, FATHER: Well, right from the start, no one had ever survived injuries such as what Sophie went through. So when we saw our chief surgeon, the chief surgeon of the hospital walk out of the operating theatre after a procedure that had never been done before with his hands up in the air saying, "It's a miracle! It's a miracle!", you've got to treat those sort of comments very seriously because they're experienced doctors.

SHARON O'NEILL: Sophie Delezio's mother Caroline Martin had been a frequent visitor to the Mary MacKillop Chapel prior to her daughter's accident. Both her children were baptised there.

CAROLINE MARTIN, MOTHER: I would say to Sophie that Mary MacKillop is holding you hand and she will never let your hand go.

SOPHIE DELEZIO, BURN VICTIM: You've said that heaps of times.

CAROLINE MARTIN: Yeah, I know I've said that heaps of times.

SOPHIE DELEZIO: And, I can never forget that so never say that again.

SHARON O'NEILL: But the case of Sophie Delezio didn't fit the strict requirements from Rome. A miracle can only occur if there has been no medical intervention.

MARIA CASEY: Sophie herself had many, many months of treatment and medical intervention and still has that kind of intervention and will so for years. But the very fact that she's alive I do believe is miraculous.

SHARON O'NEILL: For the sisters of St Joseph, the order founded by Mary MacKillop, Sophie Delezio's story is one of many that has been presented to them.

SHEILA MCCREANOR, CHURCH SISTER: From about 1925, the formal processes started. In our archives, we've got boxes of letters of people who have written in reporting that they've had cures or favours given through preying to Mary MacKillop right up to the present time. We're still receiving them every day.

SHARON O'NEILL: Mary MacKillop died in 1909, aged 67. She devoted her life to care and education of the poor and those most vulnerable. In 1995 in Sydney, Mary MacKillop was beatified by Pope John Paul II in a ceremony marking the first stage towards her universal sainthood. Now that it's clear Pope Benedict will have no announcement this time round, Mary MacKillop's supporters are hoping that next year, which will mark 100 years since her death, will be a good opportunity for Australia's own saint to finally be recognised.

(To Sheila McCreanor) What do you think she would make of this process?

SHEILA MCCREANOR: I think she might be quietly laughing and having a little smile about the whole thing.